A future-generation communication network should be able to provide a higher throughput and a faster communication response speed to Mobile Stations (MSs). Although the best service can be provided to MSs in an optimized communication environment, the requirements of every MS cannot be fulfilled. Especially, a big feature of a wireless communication network is that an MS can conduct communication while it is moving. Therefore, much overhead and a robust design are needed. To replace a conventional wired service with a wireless service, the wireless communication system should provide a high-speed communication environment with low cost.
A legacy wireless communication network was designed for fixed Base Stations (BSs) and mobile terminals. When a coverage hole is created in a specific area, most of service providers attempt coverage extension by means of repeaters. However, MSs should always be satisfied with Quality of Service (QoS) that a regular cell such as a macro cell provides and overall frequency reuse is limited by the design of the macro cell. Recently, techniques for improving QoS as well as eliminating a coverage hole by introducing the concept of extension such as a relay and/or femto cell have been proposed.
For full utilization of an entity added to a network, the entity should be able to be self-merged with a legacy commercial network. That is, a femto cell or a relay should identify its surrounding environment and acquire necessary configuration information from an adjacent device or a backbone, without the aid of an installer. Considering the femto cell and the relay are arbitrary nodes (or irregular cells) for which an on/off operation and mobility are ensured in the network, a dynamic operation should be assumed for them and static information of the legacy commercial network should be used as dynamic information. Self-merging of an entity added to a network with a legacy commercial network is called Self-Organized Network (SON).